BALTICA10

VII. ARCHAEOLOGY, FOLKLORE
AND THE RECOVERY
OF PAST ASTRONOMIES
ALTERNATIVE ARCHAEOASTRONOMIES –
AN OVERVIEW
STANISŁAW IWANISZEWSKI
ARCHAEOLOGIA BALTICA 10
Abstract
My paper focuses on diverse misinterpretations in archaeoastronomy grouped into three main topics: 1. Archaeoastronomy,
modernity, and ethnic and national identities; 2. ‘Alternative’ and ‘fringe’ archaeoastronomies; 3. Neo-shamanic, neo-pagan,
and New Age perspectives and the reinvention of an astronomical tradition. They all are briefly described in order to remind
us we should be increasingly aware of our own prejudices and of the styles of analysis we may be imposing on the celestial
lore of other peoples.
Key words: alternative archaeoastronomies, astralism, panbabylonianism.
Defining the Ground
for Archaeoastronomy
The ways in which societies are engaged with their
surroundings are neither absolute nor universally valid.
Each society has its own lifeworld which may or
may not be different from any other. Not all societies
are equally active in constructing their own surroundings,
but all acquire some knowledge of the world in
the process of dwelling in the world. Phenomenological
notions of “being-the-world” advocated by Ingold
(2000, p.5, 185-187) imply that celestial lore, like
other types of cultural knowledge, is acquired, altered,
represented and shared in the process of dwelling in the
world. Hence it should be elicited within the context in
which it functions. This context has many social, material
and symbolic components which should not be
separated from each other. Viewed in this way, celestial
lore should be conceived as embodied in peoples’
forms of acting in the world rather than as being locked
inside peoples’ heads. The advantage of this perspective
is that it offers the possibility of studying people’s
perceptions of the sky through different expressions
embedded in diverse social practices and structures,
and in material evidence.
Even if the anthropological and archaeological concepts
of culture routinely consider context as a source
of knowledge, their contextualizations are not heuristically
neutral 1 . While anthropologists and archaeologists
may well be aware of their analytical biases, other
scientists may not. Archaeological narratives reach diverse
audiences and may be worked out in relation to
different political, ideological, religious, pseudoscientific,
and other agendas. Archaeology attracts different
groups who may define themselves through the display
of distinctive symbolic forms, including objects and
practices used in the past. While archaeology and anthropology
use the concept of culture as a means of
explaining human difference and attempting to elucidate
what is relevant for cultural diversity and what is
commonly shared by all humans, modern or marginalized
groups may use the cultural (and scientific) legacy
of the past for the greater recognition of their cultural
‘authenticity’ or for specific political reasons.
Finally, all our propositions and viewpoints are made
within the framework of modern science in which objects
of inquiry are removed from the context in which
they had functioned and are analyzed in terms of western
logic with categories and techniques that are imported
from our own societies. The difference between
embedded and non-embedded knowledge has long
1
Briefly, context may be defined as the recognition of the
interactive nature of the archaeological record. It refers to
the material remains of the past that are created, used, and
deposited in a spatial, temporal, typological and functional
relationship to other remains. The point here is that the recognition
that (specific) context exists depends on the skills
of researchers and on the theories they use.
VII
VII. ARCHAEO-
LOGY,
FOLKLORE AND
THE RECOVERY
OF PAST
ASTRONOMIES
253